


One Nightmare Haunts Her

by Brit Hux-Tico (birchwoods01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Choking, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Descent into Madness, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emperor Armitage Hux, Empress Rose Tico, F/M, Heartbreak, Mind the Tags, Murder, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tragedy, please mind the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:41:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birchwoods01/pseuds/Brit%20Hux-Tico
Summary: General Armitage Hux has won the war on Exegol. He is now Emperor. Rose Tico will be his Empress, whether she wants to or not...
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 15
Kudos: 38





	One Nightmare Haunts Her

**Author's Note:**

> Ladies and gentleman, I was challenged by a good friend of mine in the Gingerrose fandom to write something I would never, ever write, and that is a non-happy ending. There are demons here. A major character dies in the end. They are murdered by their own lover. A character is raped. This story is tragic. Please, mind the tags. DO NOT READ if these tags upset you at all. 
> 
> I must admit that this was cathartic for me to write, and even in it's filth and utter devastation, I am proud of the way I put the words together. This story spoke for me and helped me to share some of my insecurities, and to explore them. This is the point of fiction, and if you do not agree, please take yourself the other way and leave me with my work in peace.

One nightmare haunts her. 

The end of the war: Pryde  **dead** , Kylo Ren  **dead** , Palpatine  **dead** ...

Rose stands on the surface of Exegol, watching the smoke clear, and Resistance members begin to cheer. She turns to her lover with a smile, meets his soft, seafoam green eyes, reaches for his hand…

He does not take it. 

His jaw is set, his eyes glittering hard as gems, his teeth cutting and grinding as he thinks. She can almost hear the scraping turns of gears in his head, and it’s like a scream, as they rewind, halt and screech, metal on metal, and the smell of smoke is now from him, as he yanks and tugs on his internal mechanisms and rewrites his decisions, a captain righting a sinking ship. 

The hand she’d often lovingly held raises toward her, a blaster closed within the fingers that had been inside her, one concealing a tiny, silver crescent moon scar- their legacy. 

“Surrender.”

This is not the voice of Armitage Hux.

It is the voice of a man who believes he is god. 

All around the tatters of the Resistance, First Order forces have appeared, waiting, it seems, in the wings for the final coup. 

But all Rose can see is the tiny round hole at the end of the blaster in her lovers hand, open and peering at her, like some dark, evil eye, ready to pierce her with fiery vengeance, to fill her with pain, to rob her of life. 

Her heart shatters. 

“Hux…” she tries, desperation clawing up her throat from the black pit of the place her heart had been. 

But she  _ knows  _ him, inside and out. This is the choice he has made. 

It is done. 

“Surrender.” He repeats himself. If he feels any sort of remorse or guilt for betraying her, his face does not reveal it. 

Rose raises her hands, not bothering to hide the hot stream of tears now rolling down her cheeks. 

Rose lives in a palace now. She is Empress of the Galaxy in name only. She wakes daily in her wing of this lavish and opulent place, cradled by the finest Pasaanian silks in her own personal bed, surrounded by tinted transparisteel viewport panes designed in mosaical shapes of flowers, her own prison garden. In object, she wants for nothing, but is provided with the finest clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry that credits can buy. 

Emperor Hux likes to take her many places, a tiny jewel on his arm. 

They are man and wife now, something Rose wished for once upon a time before she died in mind and spirit. Now she is his paper doll: she allows herself to be dressed up, to be present, to exist, but refuses to give him her mind. 

Before, when he’d been a spy for the Resistance, she had given him her mind freely, openly. He confesses it is why he fell in love with her. But Emperor Hux’s greatest wish is to have Rose at his side, to have her sharp and intelligent mind for his bidding, to use her as a tool.

He tells her that one day she will come around, as he fucks her non-responsive body, covers her in kisses and apologies that are lies, that he knows are lies and yet has the audacity to tell them. 

He tells her that he loves her. 

Rose believes that he did once. But sometimes, that feels like a lie, too. 

At night, in sleep, Paige visits Rose’s dreams. Paige pleads with her, screaming and beating her chest, prostrates on the floor, to fight back, begs in Haysian tongue, grabs Rose by the shoulders and rattles her body as if to hear her soul bouncing around inside. 

But nothing is left inside to make a sound.

Her Haysian Smelt pendant lives in a box on the top of her vanity table. When Rose put it there, she’d hoped that memories of Paige would stay in the box, too. 

But the house of her body is haunted: ghosts roam the hallways behind her eyes, the prowling form of her sister, the disappointed, gaunt stares of her parents, her friends, Finn and Poe, in prison, Rey, gone, and Hux…

He has a ghost there, too. Because the man he was to her is not the man that lives. 

Rose sits on a violet settee, staring blankly out of the window, her soft, curvaceous form draped in silk lavender robes. Fat ropes of pearl are sewn into her hair which has been drawn up in an elegant fashion, after the Queens of Naboo, Hux’s idea, done for her by serving droids. At her neck lies an enormous and priceless opal on gossamer threads of silver that glint in the light like stars. She sports artificial lashes, a pale painted face, and winged liner, pink lips. 

Tonight the Emperor will visit her bedchamber for matrimonial duties. 

He wants to conceive a child. 

As if summoned by her rumination over this impending event, the pneumatic doors peel open with a rush of sound, metal and cast-plast molding scraping and sliding against one another, and lithe, booted steps enter the room, muffled on the carpet. 

He does not approach her, but stands at a distance. She can hear every rustle of his clothing as he busies himself with the control panel on the wall, locking out potential intruders for the next ten hours of time he has allotted to spend with her. 

He approaches her then, steps slow and intentional, not out of fear, but not to startle her. She can feel him as he nears her, feels an increase in the dark magnetism between them, a heavy weight pressing on her belly, a dark gloom hanging over her head. 

He stops and stands just over her shoulder. A gloved hand touches her neck. 

“How are you this evening, my dear?”

The words are delicate and his tone is gentle, filled with false love. 

“Fine,” Rose answers obligatorily. 

He steps around her now, slowly, and comes into view, stopping her heart.

He is agonizingly beautiful, all sharp edges and golden-hued. Royalty and power suit him, as disgusted as Rose is to admit it. He is healthier than ever, his formerly gaunt face filled and though his youth is fading, he is more handsome for it. His beautiful ginger hair, crisp and slicked back as a General, is softer now, worn more fashionably, though still in utter perfection. 

He is still in uniform, but the uniform of a god. His suit is crisp black with golden edges and fasteners, gold trimmed, with stitches of scarlet sewn minutely into the fabric, betraying the eyes. A cape follows his form, stunning red, white, and gold epaulettes hang from his shoulders, and crisp pants, shiny boots, and rubied jewels hanging from a thick golden chain complete the ensemble. He is money and power and religion, all in one. 

He kneels before her now, and his expression says  _ look what I do for you, an Emperor on my knees _ . He supplicates. He still wants her love. 

He will never have it again. 

Rose raises her hand to slap him, but he is quick, catches her wrist, and even as she tugs and tries to pull her hand free, narrows his eyes until his pale lashes are kissing the skin beneath them, and lowers his head to brush open-mouthed lips across her knuckles. 

Her body betrays her as her gut tumbles, torn between nauseated joy and sorrow. 

She fights back less and less now, because he refuses to fight. Every blow she rains upon him he returns with love, which she cannot stomach. She fights him and he loves her harder. 

She taught him that, taught the snake in her garden how to weaponize the beauty of affection. 

How foolish she had been… 

“I missed you in court today,” he breathes against her hand. He moves forward to rest his body against the length of her folded legs, resting his free hand on the top of her thigh, gazing up at her. “I do wish you would come around, my sweet.”

Rose fights the sneer on her lip, the nauseated disgust, the loathing. She avoids his trickster gaze and looks away. 

“The galaxy could use a brilliant mind such as yours.”

His words caress her ego as his hand glides up her thigh, the silken fabric of her robe moving with him, hitching up off of the floor, exposing her ankles. 

“I have a lab waiting for you, ready for you to explore and use,” he offers, again, for the hundredth time as he kisses her knee, still raising her gown ever so slowly. “You could have a seat on the senate, should you wish.”

Rose laughs, the sound mirthless and cold. 

“I am your bitch,” she seethes through clenched teeth. “You came here to fuck me, so get it over with. I’m tired of your insecure pleading.”

She wants him to get  _ angry _ , to choke her, to grab her by the hair and yank her to her feet, throw her to the bed and rape her violently, to spit on her before he leaves this room. Maybe then she could hate him. 

But he doesn’t. 

His eyes grow cold and his jaw tightens, but he merely gets to his feet. He offers her his hand. 

She takes it. 

He is more attentive now as a lover than he’d ever been before the end of the war. He knows her body, better than she does, and plays her like an instrument, strumming her sex with his fingers, mouthing delicious kisses down the keys of her stomach, draws the bass of her moans with the bow of his cock inside her. She is tragic music and sound: shattering ceilings and piercing the skies with the peel of her cries. She turns off her mind, partakes but does not participate, and always, in the end, she is crying, fat, hot tears streaking her cheeks. 

He soothes her. He kisses them away. Says “hush now, my love” and “shh, darling girl” and “be calm, my  _ sweet  _ stars”. 

She wants him to die. She would rather die herself. 

When he leaves in the morning, it is agony, though she knows not why. She always wants him to return, whether from loneliness, or perhaps suicidal ideations. She lays in bed for hours, the sheets that touched his body against her naked skin, sore all over in ways that used to feel delicious but now just feel wrong. 

He is busy most days, and must make time for her in his schedule, which Rose is thankful for. She sees him mainly when her cycle moves toward ovulation, and daily at dinner where he watches over her with intense expression to assure she swallows each and every morsel. 

He invites her always to join him in his work. She refuses and goes back to her room.

Her room is her world now. There’s no need for more. The Resistance is dead, gone, as is everything else. The Galaxy is what it is. 

Once upon a time, Hux had painted her starry skies with his promises, not in words, but in actions and looks and in love. She remembers, vividly, the lightspeed fast decision making on that fateful day at wars end, can see it play out in slow motion like a holo-drama in her head, as Armitage Hux realizes that it’s here, this is the moment, the single moment, when he can have  _ every single thing he wants _ : power, autonomy, glory, praise, adoration… 

**And** Rose. Together. All of it. 

So he took it. 

In her dreams, Rose watches it play out on shattered glass and wakes crying, trembling and shaking, wishing she’d had the sense to do something, anything. Run up to him and yank him down to her and whisper all the things she’d promise to give him if only he’d make the right choice, the better choice, the  _ good choice _ . 

She feels very much like she failed. He was hers to fix, and she failed. 

A good mechanic never fails. 

And if they do, they try again, or the project goes to scrap. 

At dinner, Rose eats all of her food obediently but in silence, not abnormal. Hux extends his hand to hers over the table as he studies his datapad, much as he always does. Typically, Rose refuses to take it. But tonight, she reaches hesitantly, she grasps his hand. 

Hux’s head lifts immediately from the device to peer at her across the table. His mouth is slack. She’s unsettled him, surprised him, not an easy feat. 

Rose allows a little smile to pull on her lips as she meets his gaze. It is an olive branch. 

Hux is beside himself with glee, shown only by the hooded stare of his eyes and the tremble of his lips. He cannot help himself, and surges to his feet, rushing for her. Rose rises to meet him, and as he gathers her into his arms, their mouths come together, and she is crying again. 

He worries the tears away, shushes her, holds her still against his rapidly beating heart, mouths his way over her throat and jaw, bathing her in worship. 

_ My darling… my sweet… my beautiful star… my petal _

In her room, they make love for the first time in two standards. Tears are rolling down her round face. He is beneath her, hands on her thighs, expression torn and broken as she writhes above him, taking him deep inside with swift rotations of her hips. 

“I love you,” she confesses brokenly, her voice shaking, and she showers him in a baptism of her tears. 

His limbs tremble. His fingers shake on her lips as he dips them inside. She laps them with her tongue, tips her teeth down against that old wound, sweat rolling down her spine as she picks up speed. 

“I -... love you,” she chokes as his hand passes down her sternum between her breasts, as he pants for air, as he watches her with hooded, sultry gaze, cheeks red, lips swollen, heart bursting full. 

His hips buck riotously as she clenches around him, and Rose falls forward, placing one hand against his neck to steady herself as he begins to pound upward within her. 

Their eyes meet, and he inclines his head, giving her permission. 

Rose tightens her hand on his throat. 

His breathing labors, but he revels in it. He wheezes for breath as his orgasm begins to build. His head tilts back, his eyes close, and his lips part in a groan. 

Rose adds a second hand. He does not open his eyes. 

“I-... I l-lo-... lo-ve… youuuuu,” she sobs as he comes, sniffling back the tears. 

She does not remove her hands. Her thumbs tighten. 

Hux lies still beneath her, his face parted in pleasure, relaxes as it bleeds out of him and he settles to normal again. He opens his eyes and looks at her in confusion, lips parting as he tries to draw in air. 

Rose closes her eyes and lets out a low, dull moan as she squeezes her hands as hard as she can. 

The bed rattles as he shakes beneath her. His body bucks, he tries to kick her off, his soft and cum-covered cock slips out of her, but Rose hunkers down, low over his chest and cries out a warbled sound of agony. 

His hands find her arms and fingernails tear at her skin, pleading with her, begging. He is spitting guttural sounds, gagging on lack of air, groaning as his face turns blue as a berry. Spit runs down his chin and slides over her wrist. 

Rose gags; her hands are tormented, feeling the ache in each and every ligament and fiber of her flesh and sinew. 

It’s taking too long, and she is crying, and crying, and crying, and cannot let go, her hands are burned to his flesh, molded, welded, even if she wants to stop, begs herself to stop. She rises out of her body and screams at herself, opens her jaws and hurls her agony into the air like so much smoke and ash and fire. 

Hux stills beneath her, spirit not yet gone, but lacking the will to fight. 

He uses his last little slip of energy to touch a finger to her face and catch a single tear. 

Rose has hidden her face against his chest when he dies. She cannot look, will  **NOT** look, but holds her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she sobs into his flesh. 

There is no heartbeat. He begins to chill. 

Removing her hands from his flesh is searingly painful, like she’s held her palms to hot iron and now as she pulls away, she leaves little pieces of her flesh behind, bonded to him. 

She sits slowly up. 

She opens her eyes. 

The guards in the hallway are alerted as a scream the likes of which they have never heard ricochets out into the hall. It is the scream of a wild creature, the call of untame things one hears deep in a jungle, where sacrifices are made. It is the shaking of an earthquake and the rage of a goddess. It is the fire of Mustafar and the storm of Camino.

Rose lays over his form as they rush into the room. She is weeping, the Emperor’s face in her hands. She pets the shape of him, stares at him through dense puddles of tears, and howls in rage and fury as they try to pull her from his form. 

“I can fix him,” she shouts as they clap her in binders. “Let me go, let me-... I can fix-... I can fix him, I can-”

The sound of her voice fills the ornate and opulent hallways as they drag her, raving, from the palace. 


End file.
